Can't find vegan alternatives? What should I do?

Question

I've been a vegetarian for 5 years now, and I'm making the awesome transition to vegan. I've researched it throughly, and I know it's the right thing to do, it's a great lifestyle. The problem is, I live in a small Canadian city, and I can't find any vegan alternatives. The only things I've found are Soy Milk, Tofu, and some mock veggie meats, like veggie burgers and "deli" slices. However, I can't find vegan cheese, vegan yogurt, vegan mayonaise, or anything like that. What should I do? I'll be moving to a much larger city to go to college in a year or two, and they have everything there. But I don't want to wait that long to make the switch. Any suggestions? Also, do you have to like ALL vegetables to become a vegan? I do love them, the only thing I can't bring myself to eat is tomatoes and mushrooms. I can eat tomatoe products, like spaghetti sauce, ketchup, etc. Just not the tomatoe in it's natural state. Will this prevent me from having a balanced vegan diet?

Answer 1

No problem!! You don't need to eat vegan cheese, vegan yogurt, or otherwise.  But in case you do and you can't find the products, there are recipes that you can make at home like cheese spreads out of nutritional yeast or nuts or tahini or miso paste.  Vegan mayo is easy to make.  There are tons of recipes online.

Even though there are vegan dairy alternatives, they don't taste very similar to the real thing.  The vegan cheeses aren't even worth it in my opinion.  I have tried them many many times but I still dislike all of them.  It's easy to live without those items.  You don't need them for balanced. diet.

I rarely eat tomatoes and mushrooms and my diet is very good.  People don't usually eat large portions of those things anyway.

Good luck to you.

Edit** I just did a search for "North Bay health food store" and Nature's Harvest Health Food store came up.  Its' located at 477 Main St. E in North Bay. Here's some info: http://www.profilecanada.com/companydeta...

Answer 2

canada eh?

well i live in forest ontario for much of the year and i get stuff from the health food dtore in london

Answer 3

First off, good for you.

Veganism is the true vegetaranism.

The best thing to do, although it may not be the easiest, is to make all your own food so that you know exactly what is in it. I have found many subtitutes for things I used to enjoy as a meat eater, in supermarkets. But down the lie I kep descovering that more and more of these things contain "surprise ingredients" and so I don't really trust them any more.

Good luck. :)